1 of 2 | Tarps remain at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on June 20, a week after a court ordered the removal of Donald Trump’s name from the building in Washington, D.C. A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the center’s board to provide an explanation for the tarps and scaffolding. Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo
A federal judge asked Kennedy Center officials and the Trump administration on Wednesday for an explanation for the tarps and scaffolding that still cover part of the front of the building.
The coverings remain more than a week after workers removed President Donald Trump’s name from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts during an overnight operation June 13, just before the deadline. In May, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper had ordered the name removed from the center, ruling that the board acted illegally in renaming it without congressional approval.
Cooper on Wednesday ordered the center’s board of trustees to report “the process for and the status of the tarp and scaffolding that defendants have erected on the front portico of the center, to the extent they remain at that time.”
Those items, as of Wednesday, still covered parts of the building’s front and name, including the spots where Trump’s name was removed. Barricades and security guards keep people from approaching, The Washington Post reported.
Cooper’s order Wednesday is part of a filing by the lawyers of Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex officio board member who filed the lawsuit that Cooper originally ruled on. Beatty’s lawyers said the coverings seem to be the Trump administration’s “effort to frustrate the restoration of the status quoas it existed prior to the renaming,” The Guardian reported.
Beatty called the tarps and scaffolding an “act of petty defiance.”
The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees voted in December to add Trump’s name to the building. The decision came less than a year after Trump dismissed the entire board and named new board members, who in turn elected him chairman. Trump said the name change was a surprise, but his name was added to the center the next day.
The judge also ordered the board to report its plans for operations and arts programming after July 5, the date the building was to close for two years for massive renovations ordered by Trump’s board.
Cooper’s earlier order also directed the board that the center was to remain open, but earlier this week, board members said there are no plans for new programming. Matt Floca, executive director of the Kennedy Center, told Cooper that the board was considering three potential paths forward — full closure, partial closure or a set of phased closures — but that public access to parts of the building would be maintained during any work there.
However, he said, “given present uncertainty as to future programming, management has deferred affirmative long-term programming or staffing adjustment until the board selects a final operational path.”
